THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES by Derek CianfranceRelease date: March 29, 2013

I can’t decide whether I love this trailer, or if my interest in it is based more on the strangeness of it all. Ryan Gosling with facial tattoos and bleached hair… Eva Mendes as the tough, protective mother (compared to the last thing I saw her in – a fantastical, seductive vignette from Holy Motors)… Bradley Cooper as a cop in a terrible, terrible windbreaker. The single glimpse of that last one interests me more than the whole of Silver Linings Playbook. The title of the film is the literal English meaning for “Schenectady,” as in Schenectady, NY. As in the town just north of Albany and west of the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border, where nothing much really happens. The official premise is that Luke (Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider, wants to be a part of his infant son’s life; in desperation to contribute, he begins robbing banks, which pits him against a rookie cop (Cooper) with lots to prove. I have a feeling that “an exhilarating epic of fathers, sons and consequences” is a more apt description though, getting at both the scale and emotional core briefly displayed here. Derek Cianfrance has reportedly directed one hell of a film, better than Blue Valentine, and one cinephiles will definitely love. Regardless of pedigree, this trailer does it for me. Bring on the face tattoos.

You don't even need to understand the language to know exactly what is going on. Feel it in your heart. However... for those of you who insist... a rough translation, using my French 102 skills:

0:09 “Thank you” April 24 0:15 “Hello.” “Hello.” 0:28 I feel like my whole life depends on this moment 0:35 And that was it? The most poignant Stories of love Based on the masterpiece by Boris Vian Director Michel Gondry Invites you to live an unforgettable adventure.

42 by Brian HelgelandRelease date: April 12, 2013

Don't judge this trailer based on the inclusion of a song by Jay-Z (he may be everywhere because of Mr. Timberlake right now, but this trailer was cut months ago...). Besides, have you listened to the lyrics? "I father, I Brooklyn Dodger them; I jack, I rob, I sin; Aww man, I'm Jackie Robinson; 'Cept when I run base, I dodge the pen." Actually, go ahead and judge it on the song. You could write a grad school thesis on those lyrics. Harrison Ford, all gruff and dapper (he suited up, 40's style!) came out of "retirement" to play Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey, the man who is credited with breaking the so-called color barrier in baseball by signing Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman). And make no mistake -- this is Jackie Robinson's story. I'm curious to see whether the film handles the narrative as an ensemble or a biopic, though, because while it would be easy to tell only Robinson's story, the truth is that it took a small army to put him on that field (and keep him there). I expect Ford's character to steal the spotlight more than once. The trailer seems to uphold Robinson as the "face of change" in '42 baseball -- not just a man playing the game he loved but, as all pioneers do, an ideal who represented genuine cultural progress. This trailer is solid; writer/director Brian Helgeland need only avoid telling too many stories or allowing the film to buckle under the weight of its own (rightfully) important subject matter.

A Danish director who comes from a cinema family (his parents are a cinematographer and director/editor, respectively), he has a distinctly unique perspective on the inner workings of Hollywood. He doesn't do things traditionally on his sets: he prefers to shoot in "emotional chronological order," hugs his actors when they're trying too hard to be original, and likes driving around L.A. at night for inspiration. He can be credited with giving Tom Hardy his start as Charles Bronson in Bronson and was awarded Best Director at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival for Drive. He and Ryan Gosling have the sort of working relationship that can most aptly be described as a marriage -- and they're pairing up again for next year's Only God Forgives.

Winding Refn credits The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) as the thing that first inspired him to make films. "My parents were brought up on the French New Wave. That was god to them, but to me it was the antichrist, and how better to rebel against your parents than by watching something your mother is going to hate, which were American horror movies" (Director's Guild of America). All of his films bear a gritty realism that reflects his blunt speaking style; there is something purely European about his phrasing, that he doesn't shy away from potential offense to make a point. And yet, he is never crass -- simply truthful. The Danish film Pusher (1996, about a drug dealer who grows increasingly desperate to repay his boss when a deal goes south) was Winding Refn's debut; it began as a short film made after dropping out of film school but a producer approached him about turning it into a feature. It holds strong on Rotten Tomatoes with a respectable 81%, and its sequels were rated even higher. Pusher established Winding Refn's style as gritty, unvarnished, and heavily influenced by his dual upbringing in Copenhagen and New York.

Bronson came to him through his U.K. distributor. It is a pseudo-biographical film about Michael Peterson, better known as Charles Bronson, England's most notorious prisoner. Winding Refn had honed his directing skills after Pusher with two sequels, Fear X and Bleeder, all especially adequate preparation for the character study given their violent and psychological themes. Together with Tom Hardy he created a theatrical, manic picture of a man who is both notorious and non-existent. "I wanted to make the film very operatic and very feminine, because it’s also very much about the concept of art and art is a feminine medium... The painting of the face is more like he’s a circus entertainer, like an old-fashioned personality that doesn’t exist anymore. And yet there is no face – he’s an invisible person, because Charlie Bronson is a made up person, he doesn’t exist" (Filmmaker).

Bronson is the identity Peterson assumed after years in prison, wanting to give himself over to the spectacle of it all -- wanting to be famous. Winding Refn has spoken about similar tendencies he struggled with as a child and young filmmaker: impatience, and wanting to have the finished product before earning it. It was partially because of this that he began shooting films in chronological order, preferring to let the film surprise and develop organically. "When you make a movie you make two movies. You make a physical movie, which is a physical journey, and you make the physical movie with the script.... But shooting it in chronological order, you add a metaphysical part, where the movie takes on a life of its own."

Shooting in this manner gives his films a palpably authentic feeling that is so often missing in Hollywood. Drive benefitted not only from being shot 80% chronologically (since the more expensive set pieces had to be done in one go) but also from his need to "make films for himself." Gosling requested that Winding Refn direct it so the director pulled it from Universal's shelf to retool the story. Drive as it was originally drafted starred Hugh Jackman and lacked the driver-as-stuntman component, a book-inspired addition that would prove virtually impossible to remove from Winding Refn's interpretation without degrading the story. In the way that Bronson explored femininity, Drive explored masculinity in all of its bloody, muscle car-bound stereotypes. Though based on the book by James Sallis which has a sequel, Driven, Winding Refn has no plans to direct the next chapter of The Driver's story.

Gosling and Winding Refn continue their productive partnership with Only God Forgives, now in post-production and slated for an April 2013 release in Denmark (U.S. dates are so far unavailable). The pair have also begun scripting a remake to Logan's Run that won't surface until 2014 at the earliest. If these projects reflect the sensibilities of his earlier work, Nicolas Winding Refn will soon become a household name and one of the more influential filmmakers of the 21st century.

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Pusher III, Bronson, Valhalla Rising & Drive are all available to view on Netflix Streaming.

Check out the interview with Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling from the 2011 Cannes Film Festival below, courtesy of The Film Stage (founded by Messiah College alum Jordan Raup). Heads up for some profanity.